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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Kyekyoon(Kevin) Kim, Qichen Feng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 5 | December 1995 | Pages 1790-1796
Technical Paper | Inertial Confinement Fusion Targets | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30414
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A novel gas-dynamic levitation technique has been developed to facilitate noncontact coating of spherical ICF targets. Using this technique three metal balls 450 µm, 650 µm and 950 µm in diameter were levitated very stably for several hours, with the balls rotating continuously. Unlike the conventional gas-dynamic levitation scheme in which a single gas-emitting fixture, placed below an object, lifts it up and contains it in a confined volume, the present scheme relies on two fixtures, one placed under and the other above the object. The bottom fixture, as is with the conventional scheme, is a gas emitter; however, the top one is a gas collector shaping the flow field around the object so as to confine the object near the axis of symmetry of the levitation system. As a result, the present system exhibits excellent stability and robustness, and is immune to such external disturbances as nonuniform temperature fields and air currents, and small changes in the levitation gas pressure. The apparatus is inexpensive to fabricate and simple to operate. The details of the apparatus and the preliminary data demonstrating the capability of the levitation scheme are presented. A target coating method, compatible with the present target levitation scheme and suitable for uniform coating of ICF targets, is indicated.